Success Story: AgDynamic

Owners: Robert Freeman and Nick CuchettiYear Started: 2015Location: Sikeston, MissouriAdvice for other entrepreneurs: “Stay open-minded and be able to adapt on a year-to-year or even a day-to-day basis. I say this because the great idea that you initially structure your business around, might not be the same great idea that keeps your doors open two or three years down the road. No matter what industry you enter, there is one thing you can guarantee will happen and it’s that consumer demand will change. You have to stay creative so that your product or service always meets your customers’ new needs.”

Bringing life back to your soil.Within the next 60 years, top soil across the world could be almost entirely depleted from nutrients. This would affect all crops, including Missouri’s own nutritious watermelons, rice, and more. Two young Missouri natives, Nick Cuchetti and Robert Freeman, are on a mission to stop this from happening. They want your kids and grandchildren to eat fruits and vegetables packed with healthy vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients that keep the body and mind thriving. In 2015, they founded AgDynamic with a mission to sell a product that will prevent a food disaster while promoting and educating the world about the issue. Their part of the solution: humic acid. Drizzling farm fields with this organic compound that helps bring life back into depleting top soil may not sound very exciting, but eating cardboard watermelon doesn’t seem all that appealing either.

A passion for soil healthAs explained by Nick and Robert: “Over the years, industrial agriculture has been both degrading and depleting soils of carbon through the overuse of synthetic fertilizers, excessive tillage, and spraying chemicals. Carbon is essential to all life on earth including soil, plants, and animals. All three of these common practices are detrimental to the life in the soil, which is responsible for nearly all essential functions that plants need to survive. Microbes have evolved with every living thing on this earth and they are on almost everything, everywhere. While most of society perceives them as an enemy, the reality is only a small percent are actually bad (<5%). These microbes help all lifeforms exist. For example, they provide the ability to process food and feed the organism, whether for a plant through its roots or a human digesting food through its stomach. Microbes are working 24/7 to sustain life on earth and we have just failed to recognize they are actually trying to help us, not hurt us.”

Finding the help and support to succeedAlong their startup journey, Nick and Robert visited the Small Business & Technology Development Center in Cape Girardeau. Once there, the team of small business consultants helped them put together a business plan and financial forecast. Nick and Robert were pursuing investors to help start and grow the business which required a solid business plan to pitch. Their work has paid off; AgDynamic has since lined up distributors and customers to start reversing the trend for farmers in Missouri, the United States, and hopefully across the globe.

For more information on AgDynamic, visit their website at agdynamic.com.For more information on the SBTDC or to make an appointment with one of our counselors, go to our Businesses page.